5 Fan Theories That Make Classic Movies Even Better

#2. Willy Wonka Makes Candy Out of Children

In Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, five children win special tickets to visit the titular factory. Wonka is hoping one of them could be the heir to his business, and conducts this search mostly by being a massive dick to the kids. It's OK, though, because nearly all them are little shits.

The film has recently found new fame by providing a way to express sarcasm on the Internet, finally.

In the end only the kid named Charlie is left, since all the others get whittled down in various ways. Charlie proves to be worthy to succeed Wonka, but the only question is, why are there so many opportunities for children to suffer candy-related injuries?

The Theory:

Because Wonka's candy is made from children. That's why he's so protective of his secret formula: The list of ingredients includes "child murder" in it. Suddenly, the Tim Burton remake with Johnny Depp impersonating Michael Jackson doesn't seem like the creepier version, does it?

Well ... maybe.

In the remake we see that the children are OK at the end of the movie, but the original didn't include that scene. Now think back to the way the children are disposed of. Veruca and Augustus are sucked down a garbage chute and a pipe in a chocolate river, respectively ...

At least we hope that's chocolate.

... while Mike and Violet suffer bizarre transformations: Tthe former is shrunk to the size of a human sex toy, and the latter gets turned into a giant blueberry.

Or a Na'vi that really let itself go.

We accept what happens to each kid because, seriously, they are terrible, but think about it: Why should the pipe leading from the chocolate river be so large? Large enough for an overweight human child to be sucked through it? Because it is built to transport humans.

Meanwhile, Wonka has developed technology that can A) transform kids into giant, juicy blueberries and B) shrink them down to an edible size. All he has to do now is package them. Then there's the fact that after Augustus falls in the river they all get on a boat that has the perfect number of seats. Shouldn't there be two extra, one for Augustus and one for his mother? No, because Wonka knew the kid would fall. He was counting on it.

"I, uh, have a garage full of boats with different number of seats. Yeah."

And if that's still not enough for you, there's also the fact that Wonka pretty much admits all this in the original draft of the book. Roald Dahl wrote a chapter where a sixth child falls into a mixer along with her father. Her mom says to Wonka: " You're grinding them into powder!" Wonka replies: "Of course, that's part of the recipe!"

Everyone spent the rest of the chapter violently vomiting and crying before resuming the tour.

#1. In Inception, Cobb's Totem is His Wedding Ring

Inception is known for having a soundtrack that went BWONG every three minutes and accompanied an infuriatingly open-ended final scene designed to make you argue with your date as you left the cinema. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a widower who invades people's dreams to plant ideas in their subconscious. Each dream-planter has a personal object, or totem, to let them know if they're in a dream or in the real world, because getting lost in someone's head without realizing it is a legitimate concern in this line of work.

Cobb's totem was a spinning top: If it kept spinning forever it meant he was dreaming, and if it fell down he was not. In the last scene, Cobb makes the top spin on a table ... and then the movie cuts to black. So did it keep spinning or not? The Internet has been furiously debating this for years and we are no closer to an answer.

In fact he keeps flashing it to the chick from Juno, because he knows she's into married dudes.

Meanwhile, every time we see Cobb's hand in the real world, he doesn't have it. It's not there on any of the present-day, non-dream scenes at the beginning, and it's not there in the last few scenes ... meaning that the ending wasn't a dream. Check it out, this is right before he makes the top spin and the director pulls a The Sopranos on us:

Close the Internet, we're done.

Keep in mind, Cobb never said the top was his totem. Seriously, go back and rewatch the movie: He doesn't. We see him clutching the top in his hand when Juno asks about totems, but there's a good reason for him to do that: The top belonged to his dead wife, and, as the movie doesn't hesitate to show us, Cobb is still slightly hung up on her.

To the point where every time he goes to sleep, she chases him like a freaking Terminator.

In the movie we're told that totems must be something unique that only the owner knows well. Since the top was previously his wife's, that means Cobb must have had another totem before, right? The ring seems like a perfect choice. He stopped wearing it when she died, but was too cheap to buy a new totem.

Now that that's settled, let us put this movie to rest and overanalyze something else. What the fuck was that monkey Lincoln statue at the end of Planet of the Apes, anyway?

If you want to read more from Adam, you can check out his site or follow him on Twitter. You can also hire him for writing gigs by emailing adamwearscracked@gmail.com. To see some entries that didn't make the cut, read Rich's blog or follow him on Twitter.

And stop by LinkSTORM to discover why Khan and Darth Vader are the same person.

Do you have an idea in mind that would make a great article? Then sign up RIGHT NOW and pitch your first article today! Do you possess expert skills in image creation and manipulation? Mediocre? Even rudimentary? Are you frightened by MS Paint and simply have a funny idea? You can create an infographic and you could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow!